


On Enumeration

by cassieoh



Series: And After [8]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: I refuse to apologize for that, M/M, Other, and feeling softe about them, but also someone definitely is, no one is counting the number of gifts given, softe, thinking about numbers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:54:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26035228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassieoh/pseuds/cassieoh
Summary: The first gift ever given was shelter.No.Wait, that’s not quite right.The first gift ever given was Intent.(no knowledge of the rest of the series required, Guess the Author, round #4 "gift")
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: And After [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1430776
Comments: 11
Kudos: 65
Collections: Break in Case of Emergency: Fluff and Love, SOSH - Guess the Author #4 "A Gift"





	On Enumeration

The first gift ever given was shelter.

No.

Wait, that’s not quite right.

The first gift ever given was Intent.

The one who would later be called God (and Elohim, Yahweh, Allah, Guđán, Creator, Deus, Bog, Shàngdì and sometimes, when Her creations were afraid, very quiet voices would call Her ‘mother’) was alone in the vast nothingness that both was and wasn’t a part of Their Being. They Existed and that was all that could be said about Them until they gave Themself the gift of Intent and with it, the seeds of the Universe were sown.

Shelter was not the second gift either, come to think of it, though it was given by the same person. The second gift was a flaming sword and an encouragement to look out for one another because the world really was an awfully big place[1].

The third gift was shelter.

The Principality Aziraphale looked out at the roiling clouds and felt the wind rushing back towards them and he remembered the seminar on reptiles he’d attended in Heaven. They were different than the mammals his own corporation would emulate; they ate rarely, sloughed off their skin in great swathes as they grew, and they did not handle the cold well.

He wasn’t meant to protect the one who’d so recently doomed humanity, but Aziraphale had never been able to leave someone in distress.

So, without thought towards reciprocation, he lifted one wing and ensured the demon did not suffer.

The fourth gift was the last bite of fish shared between two humans on the banks of the first river they encountered outside Eden. The fifth, a gentle kiss upon waking. The sixth and seventh were too risque for this tale[2].

Humanity took to gift-giving like demons to rebellion[3], but Heaven and Hell never quite got it. Angels (save one) were far too absorbed in glorifying Her to think of what others might enjoy and demons (save one) tended to take rather than give.

The exceptions to these rules happened to be curled up together, watching through wavering greenhouse glass as the stars wheeled above them.

The 137993165713300th gift was a small golden ring slipped from an angel’s pinky onto the third finger of a demon’s left hand.

The 137993165713301st was a vow, breathed to life in the space between them and a kiss given by a demon to an angel.

* * *

Footnotes

1. Note that this is a source of great theological debate; many argue the true second gift was the knowledge of right and wrong and the agency to choose which of those one desired for themself. But, as this is something that the author believes should have been inherent, we shall disregard its status as ‘gift’.↩

2. As was the tenth; rather inventive on Adam’s part, but probably best suited for explanation by the reader’s local expert on kama sutra.↩

3. i.e. some are very good at it and a great many more are just there when it occurs.↩

**Author's Note:**

> The number at the end has significance; 137993165713300 >> 13.799 billion years (the age of the universe), 3.1657*10^9 minutes in 6023 years, Revelations 13:3 (speaks about the Beast of the Apocalypse and the mortal wound that had been healed on it).


End file.
